'Metro rail costlier than space travel'

As more cities across world opt for metro rail making it the mainstay of urban transportation, Chinese planners have warned that their construction and maintenance turned out to be costlier than space travel.

As more cities across world opt for metro rail making it the mainstay of urban transportation, Chinese planners have warned that their construction and maintenance turned out to be costlier than space travel.

China has spent about $6.1 billion in the last 20 years on its space programme, but that amount would just be barely enough to build 78 km of subway system, a study of costs of the metro rail system by state-run China Daily said.

The average cost of each km of subway works out to about $78 million and the metro rail systems in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai are struggling to maintain it, unable to service vast loans taken for the construction.